Last evening I was watching a video somebody sent me from around 1997. There were three things on the video -- a Q-and-A talk by Frank, a walk through Fear-No-More Zoo, and a darshan occasion.

The talk he gave was one of those berating ones, about failure to practice etc. I was struck by the darkness in the man. All the light that had seemed to be there in former years was gone out of him. He had an aspect that was both disdainful and cruel. Clearly the people who were asking hiim questions were completely in his power -- nobody would talk the way he did to another human being unless they had gained absolute power over them.

Then came the walk through the zoo. At one point Frank is seen feeding a little black pig. The pig is squealing and grunting, trying to get away from Frank. Frank holds him firmly, obviously doing a laying-on-the-hands kind of thing. As soon as Frank lets go, the pig runs squealing and grunting away.

OK, then we cut to the darshan occasion. There was a purposeful editing juxtaposition here, because the devotees were all making grunting and squealing noises, just like the pig. In fact, it sounded like a damned barnyard in the darshan hall! Frank had that slightly cruel look of amusement he is famous for, like the kid who gets pleasure from sticking pins in frogs.

At one point the camera pulled back, showing the crowd getting really worked up, all shouting and hooting and holding up their hands, and there was this sudden wave of inhuman sound, and you could feel their souls just leave their bodies, all at once, and go into him. I was stunned.

I hadn't realized how retrograde the thing had become in the last 20 years. Back when I was involved there were some very intelligent and complicated people around, including people who had spent years studying and practicing under Eastern teachers. The group I saw on that tape were simple, average folks, the kind of people who easily accept being controlled and "owned" by beings more powerful than themselves...and they were being eaten alive.

Stepping back from that horror for a moment, one might ask why would anyone want to grunt like a pig in the presence of the Divine?

One has heard of so-called "yogic phenomena" along these lines, such as Indian yogis grunting like animals as they enter various ecstatic states.

But in my view such forms of spiritual possession are nothing to brag about. They are merely evidence that one is trapped in the muladhara, or in a lower order of consciousness...which limited consciousness is being stimulated to howl and grunt by the presence of the Guru's expanded energy-field.

Banshees and psychotic dogs will do the same thing when they pick up the aura of the devil, so the story goes.

Elias